I believe the writeup presents an interesting and unique viewpoint so it's a must-read for experienced Perlers.

Meh, I think not so much unique :) Maybe be because I've hung around places like this long enough, but seem straight forward common wisdom, though there are some funny commentary ( TheDailyWTF kind of funny )

Regarding the astonishment, I would think regular unversity english/maths/physics portion of the curriculum would have cured these students of the one true way notion :)

I've found "evolution and hysterical raisins" works as a panacea answer for astonishment :)

Also funny, mentions " omitting return calls " practice that should "never be used" but then praises perls positive side, map/grep/sort as incredibly powerful, but you can't use return with those :)

Andd the overall message good, know your audience, know where your students are coming from, know your enemy, and teach them the good idioms :)

These materials touch upon some of these things discussed, and I've been waiting for an opportunity to share :)

Maybe it's just a viewpoint unfamiliar to me because I've been teaching young (first year or second year) mathematician students, who had not learnt Java and definitely don't have the same background about programming as the people Sam is teaching do.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other